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There’s only one thing I’m concerned about with the new provider: I hope they’re as fast as the current one. This is the fastest-loading forum I’ve ever been to, and that’s no small trick. Of all the features on this Knots Discussion, that’s the one I will hope stays intact.
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Replies
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Smaug,
Judging from the prototype I've seen, it looks like it will be speedy. I also checked out some of their more high-volume boards and they too seemed to do well. I know that's something Mark took into consideration when looking around.
Tim
*Not much comment here I see. I've just nipped over to the toast burners forum, and the plumbers crack bicycle park forum. Plenty of to'ing and fro'ing going on in both those forums regarding questions and concerns about the new set up if anybody wants to check these threads out. Broken yolk and toast burners yapping. Plumbers crack bicycle park grouching. Haven't checked out the thumb prickers forum, nor the hashish growers potency exchange- neither sewing buttons nor mowing lawns interest me. I guess we whackers of wood are much more fatalistic, and what will be, will be. Slainte, RJ.
*Hmmm, back to the top.
*I guess that means the "Tools" folder won't get fixed until the 19th...Dano
*I think that if pictures and attachments are not coming over, then the contents of the gallery need not be brought.I like the look and feel of the user intereface of this board. I hope it doesn't change too much. I find the threaded appearance of many boards to be a pain in the neck.Peace.-Rob
*Hey, Sgian,I know very well that you author articles for publication in woodworking magazines.But I think a venue you are so naturally equipped for and should start writing for/in is "Humor."I don't know exactly which magazine or journal would be best for you but when the right frame of mind strikes you, I think the Editors would buy your output!BestWilliam
*Yes Dano that is correct and sorry I didn't get a chance to reply to your email, I've been a tad busy...Mark
*Mark, no biggie; I figured as much.Dano
*William, if you find me funny, you're as sick and twisted as I am and you should be locked up in a cell like mine with thick rubber wallpaper. I pick the lock late at night and use the computer in my trick cyclists office to post here. Slainte, Hannibal.
*Do you all agree that if we cannot bring the pics from gallery over then we shouldn't bring any of the content over? Please let me know asap as the more data that I can "leave behind" the faster the transition will go.-Mark
*Mark, if possible, it might be nice to leave the photos/content available someplace where people could bring it over by themselves . . . nah, too much trouble, scrap that.
*Mark you just don't get it. The comment about the pictures was to indicate the importance of the pictures not the lack of importance of the content. WE WANT THE PICTURES AND THE LINKS. This is just what I was talking about in the thread of a couple of months ago. Here come the IT folks making things better for the users without the input or understanding of the users and without the users saying anything needs fixed. The folders that you are leaving behind have good history in them that we will want to get into when we search in the future. You can bring them over more slowly, in a piece meal fasion over time or you can extend the read only period to a day and a half or two days and enable us to keep the history. Those are only two possible solutions to achieve the migration and still provide us with all of the history, I'm sure there are other possible solutions. If that material wasn't important we would not be posting in those files or reading them. I think most of us would rather bite the bullet for a few extra hours or a day and have a complete migration of all of the history.This is a leading indicator of what is to come. Decisions are being made with more emphasis on technical ease than on functionality and user needs. When the new system comes up things will look and feel different and some capabilities that are sometimes small and sometimes not so small will be gone, never to return. I hope the structure of the threads doesn't change, this is the easiest most navigatable (if that is a word?) structure that I have seen. Something tells me that we are going to get that spegetti mess with threads within threads. Messing with this stuff risks killing the forum but I am sure it is too late now. The old strategy of don't tell the users until it is too late for them to ask for any changes seems to be well at play here and now.Remember, none of the users of these forums asked for these changes, in fact we rather agressively stated we don't want them. We also said that we understand that sometimes for technical reasons upgrades must be made and if that is the case it should be done with heavy user involvement when functionality changes are being considered. I for one volunteered to participate in user-needs discussions and I seem to remember others joining on -- but no our input wasn't needed -- The IT folks know more about what we want than we do.Looks like something that aint broke is going to get fixed anyway.I'm not usually so negative or resistent to change but as you can see this kind of stuff really torques me. Will
*Will,Youi really didn't expect that they would listen to the users of the forums did you? The "input" that was asked for awhile back was just an announcement that thingsb were going to change...and they are. I suspect that we will soon find out that Taunton was "overwhelmed" with e-mail in support of these changes....Dano
*The forums have been as useful to me as perhaps anyone and I would hate to "lose" anything. At the same time, Taunton has invested over the years significant time and $ to make this service available to us, and the sysops have no doubt grown a few gray hairs. If it's time for a change, then THANKS for continuing the forums on a new server rather than discontinuing such a valuable and enjoyable resource!While change can be threatening to us participants, on behalf of everyone thanks to the publisher and the sysops for making this service available in the past and in the future. And thanks to all of you who have taken the time to share your knowledge and advice.
*You're right, we're getting screwed. How dare they go change things to our board without consulting us first, especially with the huge financial investment we've have in this. I think we all should demand our money back....oh, sorry, that's right, this is FREE.
*Free? Dano told me to send my dues to him for faster handling.....Dave
*Oh Michael, Michael, Michael....Can't you just accept the humor for what it was. I have always been and remain very thankful to Taunton for this forum and benefit from it very much. This forum has been around for a long time and the fact is that we are stakeholders in it now and as stakeholders we should have been consulted much more than we were. Remember that their original post asked for our input. I don't question Taunton's motives for this site and I think that they provide a great product and service but one should not think for a minute that forums such as this are purely altruistic. Taunton benefits from it too (as well they should). It is a key part of their brand and their brand builds their business. The forum and the web site provide great knowledge for them regarding their audience that gets baked into their publications and enables them to provide value to us and to attract the advertisers that fund their business.I admit that my previous post sounded a bit childish and ungreatful but that is only because I do value this site so much. As a stakeholder in it I think my views are appropriate to be heard.Oh by the, whenever I get a chance to use humor I try to take it, so don't read more into a funny statement (at least mine) than is thereWill
*The drawings and words of Leonardo da Vinci are available to all, well maybe not all--- but go to the library and you can see that old fashioned nonsense on paper, done in ink.The machinations of governments in the early 1800's and before can be researched pretty comprehensively by studying documents held in archives.The early Thatcher and Reagan era are mostly a mystery. It's all recorded on early versions of floppy disk or tape, and the technology has moved on-- the disks and tape have degraded, and Windows XP can't decipher it.Letters I composed just five years ago are gibberish to my computer. It's all 'wingdings' from what I can see. The letters I wrote 25 years ago on paper are all still legible, if you can read English, and------------shock horror, it's b hand written with an actual pen, using actual ink, on real paper.The problem with computers is that a language like English, which is a code fairly well understood around the world, is reencoded for storage on a computer disk. English is fairly constant, but computers seem to be designed with inbuilt obsolesence,---------and glitches. Slainte, RJ.
*three things:1) Richard, your point is both well said and correct, except for #2, which is:2) All the letters and books and poetry and prose I've stored over the last 20 years on my Mac systems still read like a charm. (still have the important stuff on paper, though...)3) but the real point is for the upset folk - "WHOA, FELLA - this is a place you have an interest in, not a stake. this forum is free - if it is useful to Taunton, it still costs you nothing. If they choose to change it, fold, spindle and mutilate it, make it into a mega advertisers paradise, a perfect woodworking forum, an interactive porn site for amputee fetishists, or any other thing they can think of, they are free to do so. Know why? cuz it's theirs. I can understand saying that you would like to try to keep this or that, voicing an opinion, but to whine and bitch that someone is !@#$%^ing you because they are changing the way they buy you lunch every day is pretty ballsy. You don't even know yet if you don't like the new free food they're going to give you! How about we just calm the @#$%^ down and talk nice to our hosts?I wouldn't have posted this, except that I feel that you represent us all, and that is not how I think most of us want to be represented...
*Scott, I certainly wasn't complaining, and it doesn't sound like you interpreted my post as a whine. I pay nothing, and come here to tell lies, and some people are daft enough to think I might know something. I was just pointing out in a circuitous manner that a lot of information and general drossb will be lost in the change to the new format and server. It always has been, and always will. But we can still read language written on paper as long as it's not destroyed one way or another. And in this super advanced age of information, information is even more ephemeral than ever it was. Paper documents seem to be able to stand the test of time, unlike digitised computer records. I delete email almost as fast as it comes in. Most of it is just mindless chatter anyway, like a telephone conversation. Forums are repetitive. For the most part, the same old dross gets chewed over time after time. Once in a while something genuinely worth discussing and saving comes up, but the rest is a quick fix. The new forum will be full of much the same stuff as the old forum in less than three months. All of what really needs to be known about woodworking is passed on from teacher to student, and has already been written and recorded-------------in books that we put on the shelf as a valuable source. Slainte, RJ.
*Scott,Regular users have more than an interest in the forum, they have a stake in it -- they are stake holders. Stakeholder does not imply anything about ownership or membership. I know perfectly well that this is Taunton's forum and I don't begrudge them any use of it that they desire. In fact I think that they have been rather generous and tasteful in how they provide it and I hope they continue to benefit from it as much as possible. But don't forget that they did ask for our input so I provided it. We don't own NBC, ABC, or CBS but when they put on bad programming we have a right to complain -- they can choose to listen or not. But don't take away our right to complain.By the way, I take exception to calling my post whinny. Bitchy??? Well I'll give ya bitchy but it was not whinny :)And as I said in my previous post, I go for humor whenever I can and you shouldn't read too much into those remarks. the "we're gonna get #$%$ed" comment was just that - humor - at least I thought it was funny :) My main point was stated in the original post and I still stand by it. You may not agree but I think I made valid points.If I owe an apology for the "we're gonna get #$%$ed" comment then I apologize to Taunton and the members of the forum. It was simply an attempt to have a laugh. It was not meant to be my main point, simply humurous -- which is why it is over the top. Since it is detracting from my main point and causing others trouble I will delete it after I post this message.Will
*No! Will! don't delete it! the apology stands for itself. you want another thread that makes no sense hanging around for them to move to a new location? ;)I think we disagree about this, but not in any terrible way... (but, c'mon, it was a little whiny...) Richard, no, I wasn't talking about your post at all - in fact, even with the Mac stab, I totally agree with you. I mentioned it to my brother on the phone a minute ago, and he said that he was just reading about how historians are worried about the loss of correspondence in our society. Previously, letters to others have been a tremendous source of biographical knowledge, and people hardly do it at all anymore. Do you think I can use that as my excuse for still drawing everything by hand and not learning to use a CAD program?sb
*What Scot & Sgian said
*Scott,I hate deleted posts because when I see them I feel like I missed an episode of a mini-series (and we have been known to produce some good mini-series in here), but in this case I think it was detracting from the points I was trying to make so I'm not going to put it back in.I will stop here with this post for fear of adding cheese to the whine.Will
*I, for one, look forward to yet another re-hash of tablesaw fences (long vs short), which "X" (name a tool) to buy, and of course, which brand of toothpaste is best for polishing your crack. :)Scott
*Is it possible to make existing threads as downloadable files? That way content and pix can be preserved. I hope also that it will be possible to download ongoing threads in the new server environment. It's a lot nicer to read at your leisure than when online.
*Will,Let me address the issues and concerns you have raised. First let me say that one of the main reasons that we are changing forums was to be able to incorporate all of the requests we have received over the past year ("fix the spell check", "when are you guys gonna get a real search engine", "why is the server so slow", "why can't I login?", "dear sysop can you change my email address" anyway you get my point) so when you sayi "Looks like something that aint broke is going to get fixed anyway" from my point of view there was a lot about these forums that was "broke" and the only and best way for us to accomplish this was to change software and hosts. Which is what we did.I belong to several other forums as a participant and I have seen and used most of the differant forum software that is out there and one of my biggest concerns when we started looking at new boards was to make sure that we got something that was user friendly. So you couldn't be more incorrect in your statmenti "This is a leading indicator of what is to come. Decisions are being made with more emphasis on technical ease than on functionality and user needs. When the new system comes up things will look and feel different and some capabilities that are sometimes small and sometimes not so small will be gone, never to return." I use these forums for my personel use as much as most of the users out there, and I can tell you that IT reasons don't factor much at all, yes there are many features about the new software that will allow us to administer these forums more easily and effectively but that will only enhance the experiance for you folks. As far as the links and images go, we are unable to maintain the links because they all reference a server that is no longer going to exist which is also true for the images. Any links that refernece another website will still work.I hope I have addressed all of your concerns and explained some of the whys and whatnots.-Mark
*Mark, change is good. Resistance to change is normal. You're on the right track.Steve
*MarkThanks for the response and good luck with the migration. As you can tell my experience with upgrades like this has not been very good (that experience did not come from Taunton by the way but in a previous thread of this nature other's experiences have). So I caste those experiences against this effort and perhaps I shouldn't have.The crux of my angst comes from two things, the previous experiences that I just mentioned and the lack of involving us users vs. just simply announcing that changes are coming (which for many organizations has proven to be an unsuccessful change path). Perhaps it would have helped to tell us to look at another forum that will have a similar look and feel as the one that you are installing. I know it wouldn't be a perfect match but it would have helped us better understand what is coming. I don't doubt the amount of time that you spend in forums or that you intend to make the new forum user friendly; but what is intuitive and user friendly for you may not be so to the users of this forum as I am sure that we (most of us anyway) have a much less technical background than you. That is why a "sample of one" can be dangerous when designing online applications.Having read the rebuttle posts and having thought about this for a few days I admit that I jumped the gun and opted for voicing concerns early instead of being acused of "Monday morning quarterbacking".I hope that you do prove me wrong and I commit to creating a post that will say just that when, (I almost said if but decided to give you the benefit of the doubt) when the new site comes up and is at least as intuitive and user friendly as this one. While I would have recommended a different design and communication process I do not question your commitment to making this successful - I appreciate your working very hard to make it so. I apologize for being brash in my original post. I hope that the new forum will be as intuitive and user friendly as the current forum.Good Luck,Will
*RJT,I don't know about downloading a thread but when I want to read one on my laptop when I am not online I copy and paste the whole thread into a word document, save it, and open it up later (when I am on an airplane etc.) Hope it helpsWill
the reply box is bigger which is nice, but I don't like the scroll bar on the left for all the topics. I supposed this new layout will take a little time to get used to, but I have to say that I liked the old one better. I also don't like the fact that I can't use my old name. after I get used to the new forum I hope my opinion will change.
Well this will take some getting used to, voted for the "it'll do in a pinch" category. Maybe my opinion will change, Bill Richardson has now transmogrified to what you see above. Not happy with it but I 'spose I'll adjust.
Bill,
Go into your Prefs and add whatever you want to use for a nickname in the nickname field. To get to your Prefs click on the My Forums button and you will seee links to your Prefs and Profiles etc. I hope to see Bill Richardson back posting soon. If you need further help just let me know.
MarkSYSOP
Thank you for your reply. As much as I liked the "old forum" lay out, I'll give this new one a fair shake. Regards.
Well, I think the new look is crap. I'm outta here.
I too am out of here. Just looking at this mess gives me a headache. Here are two of the problems I'm having with it:
1. Nothing should look cluttered on a 21 inch monitor - I feel sorry for you guys using a 15 inch or less.
2. Can't access forums with lynx anymore. I'm probably the only user affected by this but it's still a pain in the butt and is caused by using frames where they don't need to be used. The old interface worked great without them. Using frames here just adds to the clutter.
I hate to say this, but I think I even like Wood Magazine's forums better than this, and that's saying alot!
Hi again Mark,
I changed my nickname slightly, not long after I first registered. While my posts have the 'new' nickname, the first nickname is still lurking:
--in the orange bar at the top of "my preferences"
--in the log-on box
I'm going to try and long in under the 'new' nickname, and see if I can make it work.
***********************
OK, I just confirmed, I cannot log in using my new nickname, even though my posts are showing up with that nickname.
When I log out, the message I get has both nicknames in it: "You're currently logged in as forest_girl (A_FORESTGIRL)."
Edited 3/20/2002 10:52:14 PM ET by forest_girl
Tim/Mark,
Do you really have to log out each time?
TDF
Tom,
It's a good idea to, but you can also just close your browser. If you got to another page, depending upon the type of page it is (secure or whatever) you may have relogin.
Tim
Tim, do the threads that are in the folders on the left get sorted by which ones have the newest posts? I know the old forum sorted that way but I am not sure if the new forum does.
I know there is a drop down box that enables us to sort them by a number of different ways. After using it a bit I find it easier to keep my orientation and to know what I have read / not read / and am interested in reading by using the "keep it simple" method of the previous forum. Perhaps the default sort is the same as the previous forum but I can't really tell. Can you let me know?
Also the threads don't seem to get updated with the number of posts (and with how many are new) in a "real time" (or near real time) fasion like the previous forum. As new posts are created the thread should move to the top and we should be able to see it change each time we click into that folder area. Like I said it may be working that way but I can't tell. Do you all expect it to work that way? If not will you consider making it work that way?
Will
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